Hacker Friendly S-100 and SS-50 Bus Machines
Early on, since the 1st generation microcomputers were primarily
the domain of tinkerers, a couple of interface standards emerged in the
system bus area, mainly the S-100 and the SS-50 bus. The S-100 was the
100 pin data bus used in machines such as the Altari 8800 and others, while
the SS-50 bus was used in machines made by SWTPc, Smoke Signal Broadcasting,
and GIMIX. The S-100 machines tended to use the Intel 8080 or similar CPU,
while the SS-50 bus machines tended to use the Motorolla 6800, and later,
the 6809 CPU. Both designs lasted into the early 1980's, though the S-100
bus is the better known of the two.